A portal is a point of access to data and applications that provides a unified and potentially personalized view of information and resources. Typically, a portal is implemented as one or more pages on a website. Portal pages can integrate many elements, such as live data feeds, static information and multimedia presentations. For example, a portal page could combine news headlines and a stock quote ticker that change over time with inert information such as maps, images and text. When a portal page is designed, software that drives these various elements must be programmed such that the desired page is rendered. This presents a obstacle to average users who wish to design and customize such pages unencumbered by implementation details. What is needed is a flexible, accessible way to create and maintain portal pages.